MOUNT VESUVIUS' ERUPTION OF 79 AD
On the morning of 24th of August the eruption begun, clouds of ash and pumice shot 19 kilometres (12 miles) high from the central cone of the volcano. At midday, you could have been mistaken for midnight as the city of Pompeii, just 8 kilometres from the volcano was covered with around 6 inches of ash and pumice with in an hour.
Nearing midnight the column from the volcano collapsed and mountainside was a glowing avalanche. Filled with boiling hot gases, pumice and rock all flowed over to the town next to the volcano, Herculaneum. Burying the town under 65 feet of boiling lava. It looked as though the town had a layer of concrete poured over it and sealed.
The following morning, a fourth avalanche rocketed burning gases and more ash burying Pompeii and it's inhabitants to a 12 feet depth. Areas in the same region such as Stabia and Oplontis were buried in the thick ash and pumice.
The earthquake whipped up huge waves in the bay and fallout from the eruption covered the entire area with very heavy dust.
Since the day of this eruption there have been following eruptions causing the mountain to reshape. They would occur around every 100 years until 1037. The following six hundred years it was quite calm which caused the mountain to reforest. Although on 16th of December, 1631, a major eruption took place and wiped out all the towns which had been built around the bottom of the mountain. Over the next three-hundred years there were only 23 eruptions varying in size. The most recent eruption was in 1944 when Italy was being attacked by Allied forces. As of today the volcano still bubbles and smokes, but with the technology of today, the people living in the area are able to be alarmed prior to any eruptions. Their properties will be damaged but they will still be able to save their lives.
WITNESS OF THE ERUPTION
A young student around the age of 18 named Gaius Plinius (Pliny the Younger) witnessed the eruption and wrote 2 long letters about what he had witnessed. Here is the translation of some parts of the letter:
"On August 24, about one in the afternoon, my mother drew my uncle's attention to a cloud of unusual size and appearance. It was not clear from a distance as to which mountain the cloud was rising from, although it was afterward known to be Vesuvius. The cloud's appearance can best be described as looking like an umbrella pine (Meditteranean pine tree), for it rose to a great height on sort of a trunk and then split off into branches. I believe, because it was first driven by a sudden gust of air (recenti spiritu eiecta), then, with its diminution or because of the weight, the cloud expanded laterally, sometimes white, sometimes dark and stained by the sustained sand and ash (pondere suo victa in latitudinem vanescebat, candida interdum, interdum sordida et maculosa prout terram cineremque sustulerat)."
His uncle (Pliny the Elder) was the commander of the naval fleet at Misenum. He realised Vesuvius was erupting and decided to take some ships across the bay to save who ever he could. It was practically impossible for them to go close to land because of the hot ashes and pumice, and so they went to a place near Pompeii called Stabiae. They watched Mount Vesuvius erupt this is what he wrote from the experience:
"even the sea seemed to roll back on itself, pushed back by earth tremors. Many fish were beached on the sand. In the other direction gaped a horrible black cloud torn by zigzag flashes and masses of flames, like lightning but much larger...at night time we were enveloped, not a moonless night or one dimmed by cloud, but the darkness of a sealed room without a lamp. After a while we were reached by another cloud - Again the obscurity, again the ash, dense and heavy. We raised some time to shake away the ash as we could have been covered and choked by its weight- ("Tenebrae rursus, cinis rursus, multus et gravis. Hunc identidem adsurgentes excutiebamus; operti alioqui atque etiam oblisi pondere essemus."
"Only the shrill cries of women, the wailing of children, and the shouting of men. Some were calling to their to their parents, others to their children, others to their wives...Many lifted up their hands to the gods, but most were convinced that there were now no gods at all and that this night was the end of the world. Finally the darkness lightened, and then like smoke or cloud dissolved away. Daylight returned, and the sun shone out, though luridly, as it does when an eclipse is coming"
Nearing midnight the column from the volcano collapsed and mountainside was a glowing avalanche. Filled with boiling hot gases, pumice and rock all flowed over to the town next to the volcano, Herculaneum. Burying the town under 65 feet of boiling lava. It looked as though the town had a layer of concrete poured over it and sealed.
The following morning, a fourth avalanche rocketed burning gases and more ash burying Pompeii and it's inhabitants to a 12 feet depth. Areas in the same region such as Stabia and Oplontis were buried in the thick ash and pumice.
The earthquake whipped up huge waves in the bay and fallout from the eruption covered the entire area with very heavy dust.
Since the day of this eruption there have been following eruptions causing the mountain to reshape. They would occur around every 100 years until 1037. The following six hundred years it was quite calm which caused the mountain to reforest. Although on 16th of December, 1631, a major eruption took place and wiped out all the towns which had been built around the bottom of the mountain. Over the next three-hundred years there were only 23 eruptions varying in size. The most recent eruption was in 1944 when Italy was being attacked by Allied forces. As of today the volcano still bubbles and smokes, but with the technology of today, the people living in the area are able to be alarmed prior to any eruptions. Their properties will be damaged but they will still be able to save their lives.
WITNESS OF THE ERUPTION
A young student around the age of 18 named Gaius Plinius (Pliny the Younger) witnessed the eruption and wrote 2 long letters about what he had witnessed. Here is the translation of some parts of the letter:
"On August 24, about one in the afternoon, my mother drew my uncle's attention to a cloud of unusual size and appearance. It was not clear from a distance as to which mountain the cloud was rising from, although it was afterward known to be Vesuvius. The cloud's appearance can best be described as looking like an umbrella pine (Meditteranean pine tree), for it rose to a great height on sort of a trunk and then split off into branches. I believe, because it was first driven by a sudden gust of air (recenti spiritu eiecta), then, with its diminution or because of the weight, the cloud expanded laterally, sometimes white, sometimes dark and stained by the sustained sand and ash (pondere suo victa in latitudinem vanescebat, candida interdum, interdum sordida et maculosa prout terram cineremque sustulerat)."
His uncle (Pliny the Elder) was the commander of the naval fleet at Misenum. He realised Vesuvius was erupting and decided to take some ships across the bay to save who ever he could. It was practically impossible for them to go close to land because of the hot ashes and pumice, and so they went to a place near Pompeii called Stabiae. They watched Mount Vesuvius erupt this is what he wrote from the experience:
"even the sea seemed to roll back on itself, pushed back by earth tremors. Many fish were beached on the sand. In the other direction gaped a horrible black cloud torn by zigzag flashes and masses of flames, like lightning but much larger...at night time we were enveloped, not a moonless night or one dimmed by cloud, but the darkness of a sealed room without a lamp. After a while we were reached by another cloud - Again the obscurity, again the ash, dense and heavy. We raised some time to shake away the ash as we could have been covered and choked by its weight- ("Tenebrae rursus, cinis rursus, multus et gravis. Hunc identidem adsurgentes excutiebamus; operti alioqui atque etiam oblisi pondere essemus."
"Only the shrill cries of women, the wailing of children, and the shouting of men. Some were calling to their to their parents, others to their children, others to their wives...Many lifted up their hands to the gods, but most were convinced that there were now no gods at all and that this night was the end of the world. Finally the darkness lightened, and then like smoke or cloud dissolved away. Daylight returned, and the sun shone out, though luridly, as it does when an eclipse is coming"